Japan’s Relationship with Portuguese-Speaking Africa: Considering the Future of Brazil–Japan Cooperation

Abstract

AbstractJapan and Brazil have built a partnership not only in bilateral and multilateral framework but also in triangular cooperation. In recent years, the term FOIP (Free and Open Indo–Pacific) has been used as the philosophy of Japanese diplomacy. FOIP vision means to achieve peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and African region. Brazil itself is not a direct region for FOIP. But considering the African region is included in FOIP, and for Brazil, Africa is a continent historically and strategically important, Japan’s diplomatic concept, FOIP is not irrelevant to Brazil. To think about the future of Japan–Brazil relations, it is necessary to consider Japan’s African diplomacy in the era of FOIP in order to compare it with Brazil’s African diplomacy. In this article we will especially focus on the Portuguese-speaking African countries. The structure of the article is as follows. First, regarding Japan’s diplomacy with Africa, the philosophy and achievements of TICAD (Tokyo International Conference on African Development) started under the initiative of Japanese government since 1993 will be explained. In considering the future cooperation between Japan and Brazil in Africa, it is also necessary to understand Brazil’s African diplomacy. To that ends, the second part of the article will be the Brazilian diplomatic relations with Africa from the postwar period to the present day. In contrast to the active relations with Africa during the Lula governments, some major setbacks can be seen in the current Bolsonaro administration’s diplomatic relations with Africa. After the characteristics of Japan and Brazil’s diplomacy with Africa have been clarified, in the third part of this article, we will inquire the possibility of further cooperation of Japan and Brazil while looking back on the history and achievements of triangular cooperation between Japan–Brazil, and African countries, especially Mozambique. And we will put some comments as a concluding remark.